Lyra was bored.
Well, that wasn't true. Her horn hurt, and her head ached, and she didn't feel up to going and finding something to occupy her somewhat-scattered attention, but she was rapidly getting tired of the back room of the infirmary with its still-stink and silence. The doctor had her on some sort of opiate that stretched out time, or collapsed it, or made time into an accordion.
Whatever, it made time weird, and Lyra was tired of it. She couldn't think, and it was boring her to tears. She didn't think she'd ever turn junkie, if this was what being stoned out of her mind was like.
Lyra was thinking of spitting out the next pill the doctor gave her, or refusing medication, or whatever you did to stop being pumped full of pain meds. Had there been needles involved? She couldn't remember. She'd just overstressed her horn, it wasn't like she was missing a hoof or a leg!
"Oh, look at this, yet another fool. Where do you find them all, priestess?" muttered something in a horrible whisper.
There was someone in Lyra's room. When had they come in?
"What, Lyra? She's nopony important, Auntie," said the somewhat-subdued voice of that pink hippogriff from the batpony troop. She was barely recognizable without the cheerful bubbliness.
Lyra concluded that there were two someones in her room.
"You will let your Auntie Amphitrite determine who is and is not 'important', Eye," the other voice said eerily.
Lyra slowly turned her head towards the voices, and there the pink hippogriff was, lying on the other bed in the room. Cot? Was this a cot or a bed? It seemed too substantial for a cot, but it wasn't what she'd call a 'bed', either.
The hippogriff was staring back at Lyra. Why were they still 'griffs' when they had ponies' rears instead of cats'? Shouldn't they be bird-horses? Wait, no, that was pegasi. Raptorpones?
"What is wrong with her? Why is she staring at us?"
"Uh, I don't know. I can ask. Mistress Lyra? Magus Heartstrings? Oh, I don't know how you address a wizard. Auntie, what form of address do you use for wizards?"
"Fool of a Fish! You address pony wizards with javelin barrages. It is never wise to allow a pony wizard as close as you are now."
Lyra's half-focused eye wandered, searching for the second speaker, and failing to find it. Or her? Lyra's thoughts chased each other like cartoon mice around the feet of an equally stoned cat. Horse. Thing.
Do pink hippogriffs eat cartoon mice?
"Well, we can't do that, she's part of the regiment. Well, a friend of the regiment? Some sort of volunteer? Missus Lyra, what's your actual relationship with the Crystal Guard?"
What? They were asking her something?
"Uh… a bit more than a one-night stand, but not quite engaged yet?" If Lyra was in a relationship with the Guard, why wasn't she getting more sex? Sounded kind of hot, actually, being the darling of a cavalry squadron. Maybe she could talk Sparkle and her big hen into something fun, put on a show for the troops...
"Your wizard seems disoriented, Eye. Perhaps you should get your incompetent sister."
OK, that voice definitely didn't have a body to go with it. Or else it was hiding behind the lance corporal.
"Hey! There's no cause to be so nasty to Hawk Eye!"
Or maybe she had a mouse in her pocket. Maybe it was her lunch? Lyra was glad she was a herbivore, she didn't think she could handle food that talked back to you.
"I rather thought that you were cross with your sister."
It was a particularly evil-sounding mouse, if it was one. Maybe Lyra could eat talking food if it sounded… evil. Wicked.
"That's that, and this's this. I don't want you bad-beaking Hawk in front of others!"
"The wizard is unlikely to remember this conversation in her altered state. I know drugged ponies when I see one. Or rather, when you see one, Eye."
Damn it all… "Would you stop talking around me like I'm not here?" Lyra tried to say. It came out something more like woobya stahp takakhin rund meh laik haim here naught?
She really needed to stop taking whatever Hawk Eye gave her. This stuff wasn't just an opiate, it was some sort of muscle relaxant.
The pink hippogriff got up off of her bed, and came over to loom over Lyra's bed.
"Wizards have become much less impressive since the last time I visited the sunlit world, Eye," she said in a creepy dead-eyed monotone.
Wait. That definitely came out of the hippogriff's beak.
And her eyes, what was wrong with her eyes?
"Perhaps your wizard is defective?"
"Hey! No insulting the major's friend, either!" the hippogriff said, turning her head and looking like what Lyra had remembered of the beaked mare, her eyes back to their usual selves. "Or our volunteer magus. Or whatever it says in the paperwork on file in Corporal Ping's office."
"You are becoming quite assertive for a mere mortal, Priestess Eye. I rather like it. Do go on," the pink hippogriff said, and the eyes were back.
Lyra really wasn't enjoying her first bad trip.
Dogs. Why did it have to be dogs? Master Sergeant Gilda had made the deal, and fixed Purse's mess for him, but why did it result in smelly, stinking, looming dogs all over his ship?
He knew it wasn't actually his ship, but you got attached, you know? Possessive.
The team of rockhopping Perroencian dogs were big, and shaggy, and smelly, and they knew exactly what they were looking for. Purse had gotten his three ratings to lever open each bunker hatch as they went, and the damn dogs went digging into the coal like… he didn't know what metaphor to use. Dolphins porpoising in the open sea was what came first to mind. But dolphins were noble, and beautiful, and strange.
Purse had once watched a pod of dolphins, far, far away, colored powder blue and pink and orange, racing each other towards the sunset, so tiny and graceful in the distance, like darting sea-birds in a flock.
This wasn't that. This was thrashing claws, and fountains of crumbly coal, and clouds of stinking coal-dust, which somehow was drawn down in an unnatural, very un-dust-like fashion, dispersed before they could form a flash-fire threat from any wayward sparks.
A dog head poked up out of the coal, near where Purse Strings was crouching beside the bunker hatch.
"Found it, buck-toothed pony. Here, catch." The older dog pulled something out of the coal, flinging it at Purse's head.
He caught it by reflex, before it caught him in the face. Purse looked down at what the damn dog had tried to put his eye out with.
It was a lump of coal.
"What am I looking at, fellas?" he asked, confused.
"Harriet not a 'fella', pony. And that carbó thauminós."
Purse tried to parse what little dog-speak he knew. Carbo- that was coal, wasn't it?
"Yeah, it's coal. Isn't it supposed to be coal?"
"Cavall ximple! That not antracita, that carbó thauminós. Pony put carbó thauminós in vaixell reactor, pony get un esclat, o un incendi."
A smaller dog head popped out of the coal, next to the larger, incoherent bitch's head. "What my esteemed mentor here is trying to say, my dear stallion, is that you've been feeding thaumically active coal into an engine rated for simple anthracite. Judging from the paperwork. Too much oomph for modern engines, if they're built to burn common coal, like yours are. Where did you get this coal?"
This was bunker number 3. "I think it's from the original load that the old Daddy Longlegs came into the refit yard with. We've been burning through the newer coal. I'd have to check the consumption logs."
"Well, we haven't finished looking yet," said the smaller one. "Oi, senyora?"
"Oi, Reina petita. Seguim buscant. Podria haver-hi torpedes de carbó o alguna cosa així sota tota aquesta merda màgica."
Purse gave up trying to follow the dog's barking, she'd entirely given up on Equish. He looked back to the little black bitch with the big vocabulary.
"Yeah, we not done looking. Could be something worse under all of this magic coal. Either way, you'll have to dump it, this stuff will make your engine blow out. Again. I get you a deal on replacement anthracite. Cheap!"
Purse knew a come-on when he heard it. "We'll see, I want to talk to Boss Mindy first. What did you say your name was, girl?"
"Tia Mindy will tell you the same thing I just did!
"And I'm Reina. You can call me Queenie! Tia Mindy says I'm shipping out with you ponies!"
The little bitch talked like it was a done deal.
Purse was afraid it was.
Storm take it, you know they're gonna saddle me with her, he thought as the toothy bitch grinned up at him, her bangs hiding her doggy eyes.
A queue of collier boats were idling for their turn beside the Princess Bit's port side hatches. The carrier hadn't been designed to dump out the contents of her coal bunkers - coal was supposed to be consumed via the engine boilers, not pitched over the side like a pony vomiting up perfectly good sharkmeat.
A few beats of Giles's wings, and he was over the deck, looking down in the first of the boats, which the port-dogs were anchoring in place, below the mouth of the jury-rig some of the Bit's sailors and the rest of the port-dogs were fussing over.
Didn't want to dump that stuff right into the harbor, after all. It was magic, whatever that meant, and Giles certainly didn't know. Winds only knew what might happen if you left magic coal to steep at the bottom of an active bay. Maybe giant mutant crabs?
Giles looked down at the stove-bed over which Giles' shark had been ruined, a metallic affair the sailors called a camboose. (Giles was still salty about how the cooks had wasted his catch. Stupid ponies, not knowing how to prepare shark. Giles wasn't even a sea-shore griffon, and he knew that you needed to soak the stuff in… he wasn't sure what. But it shouldn't have tasted like it had. And that great shark chowder cookout had started so well…)
The camboose was tipped over, now, its iron and stone lining pointed westward, the hatch upon which it was mounted propped open, exposing the bunker below and Giles' griffons waiting for the signal to feed the improvised bucket-chain-and-sluice rigged to carry up out of the bunker, over the deck, and over the side of the ship.
It was better than a bucket brigade, but not by much.
Some of Giles' griffons were leaning on their coal-shovels, beside the deck-side rig, waiting on the ensign's order to start again. The rest of the squad were down in the bunker, standing on top of the pile of coal, or gathered around the bucket-chain dangling through the hatch. Giles dropped down into the bunker, to make sure the ones out of sight weren't getting into mischief during the delay. The dogs and ponies were still fiddling with the bucket-rig, and its wheels and gearing, and cursing in two languages.
"Lance Corporal, why haint the bluddy bats doin' this dog's work?" demanded Giles' laziest tom, looking down into the hatch and doing absolutely buck-all. "We was the ones pullin' the Bit inta port, and befor' that-"
Giles flew back up through the hatch, and poked a talon in the trooper's face, getting ready to ream out the trooper.
Then the ensign started waving from the huddle by the sluice.
The ponies and dogs were done with their fiddling and the jury rig, it was ready to go.
"Shut your bleedin' beak, Gillie," Giles snarled. "And get down in that bunker. You have time to talk, you have time to dig. We need this bunker for actual coal. Unlike you'd like to 'arness oop again and haul the blessed Bit around for us for the rest of the tour? We could all sit on the forecastle an' cheer you on! No? So get to work, before you get us all on work detail for the rest ov th' month!"
Giles pushed the trooper into the open hatch, grabbed his coal shovel, and followed him down into the coal-blackened mouth of Tartarus that passed for a bunker.
They put their shoulders into it, and made the magic dust fly.
Purse Strings felt like he was going to cough up a lung.
"Queenie! Can't you do something about this dust?" Purse demanded. The bucket-chain creaked and moaned, four ponies and two griffons working the gearing and treadmill that brought the buckets up out of the bunker, another two griffons minding the long funnel taking the spill over the side of the ship. The sound of the griffons down below shuffling was tapering off. They were stuck deeper in the manky mess than the quartermaster or the rest of the laboring troopers, who were standing close enough to catch some of the effect. He was afraid of what might be happening to the troopers at the bottom.
"Oh, per amor a Proserpina, am I to be a dust-setter for the rest of my days? How far the noble get of Casa Negra falls, that she reduced to doing what a decent mister or spritzer rig could do - without any màgia terrestre whatsoever." The arrogant dog bitched, but at the gesture of a paw, the dust fell out of the air, and the griffons down below in the bunker could be seen again. "Why don' they have masks on? You lot! Get some Plouton-damned bandannas over you idiot beaks, before you grow new head, or turn into breezies!"
"I'd like to become a breezie, marm! Nogriff'd be askin' a wee little pony-bug thing to shovel coal wit their delicate leetle hoovesies, wouldae?" smarted off a damned smart-beak from below. Purse guessed it was the one the supervising lance corporal swatted across his back with a coal shovel.
"Laugh it up, you silly birds!" barked the little queen. "See what happen when fool bird get small enough to be swatted like horsefly!"
"Is it likely to actually mutate troopers, or the crew?" Purse asked, quietly.
"What, nah, nah. Just give them the cancer, or the pulmó negre, or Proserpina know what. Where did you ponies get your ship, in box of crackerjacks? Like you never sailed before."
"A lot of them haven't. And I can't be everywhere," Purse said, defensively. He was just the quartermaster, melody take it.
"Yeah? Sounds like ponies need someperro to take charge of this mess of a ship. Good thing Tia Mindy bulldog you into taking Reina on, wasn't it?"
Purse wasn't sure whether he wanted to glare at the little tyrant, or shake his head at her nerve.
"Come on, Queenie. I need to introduce you to the Major. The pony who actually owns this ship. And could turn you inside out with a blink of her eye, 'magia terryestria' or no."
"Yeah? We'll see, pony."
"Call me Quartermaster Strings, Queenie."
"Only if you call me Reina, Oncle Stallion. Queenie's for friends. You want to be Quartermaster Strings, I'm Reina."
Purse snorted. And led the little tyrant back towards the squadron offices.
Really hoping Gleaming can get Reina to cut down on the bs. She certainly isn't going to accept that attitude
I think Reina/Queenie will fit right in juuuuuust fine.. I also like the fact that she is bilingual and seems to know her stuff around mining techniques or at least rocks and their usefulness.
But yeah, like she pointed out, the lack of experience in the crew will cause... growing pain I am afraid.
Yup, that sums up her situation perfectly.
If only she knew...
I need a traduction because there is the words torpedes de carbó in it and that’s worrying. Maybe she is waiting to speak with someone in charge to not spread rumors?
Or telepathic clams or banks of banks of invisible sardines. You know, to drive the fishercreatures completely batty. Containment of thaumic waste is serious business.
I feel that chowder will be on the regiment memory for a long time.
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As a very dirty translation, she basically said Hey, little Queen. We're still looking. There could be coal torpedoes or something under all this magic shit.
10386815
Good to know!
I think she saying that there bad quality coal magical or otherwise.
I just realized why she treated her so well. Gilda is a "Child of Air and Stone." From amphirite.
Facedesks. Bloody heck, when you see the answer right in front of you a couple passages into matters.
And Lyra to see behind the mask with the matters of eyes. Still, if nothing else, you can certainly get a fair price here on the magic coal.
So, like, does Auntie Amphitrite understand civilization, the present day, or anything beyond unremarkable, brutal tribal warfare? She's not really impressing me with her sophistication here.
I'unno, is there equestrian military equivalent to the Green Weenie? Maybe they have a different type of metaphor for institutional misbehavior toward its members.
I see, presumably Auntie A has been away from active involvement in the world for a long time. Seems like an ominous not-a-coincidence that she's woken up just now.
Also, Lyra seems very not-recovered from the thing she did, although the drugs plus Lyra make it a little ambiguous.
Sounds like a bunch of professionals who know their trade.
I read Spanish well enough to easily follow the conversation. Not sure how much it loses for those that don't. The rockhoppers seem very much like professional dogs who do coal and coal-fired machinery and I liked the scene.
Edit: the dogs are speaking Catalan. Took me way too long to realize that. I thought the author had
So she seems like more of a Sunset Shimmer than a Twilight Sparkle.
Edit: I realized after an embarassingly long time that the spanish-related language they're speaking is Catalan. Which is funny, because I picked up a Catalan accent for a while from my first teacher.
Riiiiiiight--what era of time do you live in again, Amphitrite? Medieval? Sounds medieval to me.
In all seriousness, I think Amphitrite is a little behind on the times and probably could use a good refresher course on the history between now and...whatever century she still thinks it is. Too bad she got Fish Eye instead...but of course this all assumes Amphitrite would be willing to pay attention to said crash course anyway--she seems arrogant and set in her ways enough that I would have doubts, put mildly.
No, no, the problem is simply that the wizard has a bad case of Lyra Heartstrings. There's no cure, so you're going to have to put up with her, though keep in mind she's also hopped up on some serious drugs at the moment too, so...you know...actual intelligence not currently shown to scale and all.
Oh, it is, Purse. It is.
Better call Rarity, then.
I can see why Mindy wanted to be rid of Reina for awhile. I'd want to too.
Humm. As a Rockhopper/Geomancer, I wonder what will be the tools of the trade Reina will bring along with her. I mean, what mage don't? I could see multiple things depending on what branches of her magic she focus on. It could include:
- A Geologue/prospector kit: hard hat with lamp, single handheld pickaxe/hammer combo, sample bag, small pliable shovel, etc. (To search or gather sample)
- Stone cutting tool to shape stones, precious or not, for enchantment.
- maybe some metal working tools.
- leather/sewing tools for clothing or collar.
- A some alchemical compounds and reagents.
- some bottles and cans of various minerals for spells. A bit of everything.
- a pickaxe/hammer or a spade (both a weapon and tool, might doubleas a magic staff/focus)
- a crystal ball (it's a rock after all)
- Notebooks and spellbooks (not sure about the later)
The idea is to make her not useless in a fight that don't happen on the ground, give her some research materials and stuff to do on the trip, like studying the magic she like, working on new tools or projects, etc. It would give more occasions in the story for her to talk shop with the others magic users/savant on board and give the author a chance to explore the concept.
10386557
Not so sure.
TwilightGleaming has progressively become less and less interesting, as the story goes on.To quote Gilda from an early chapter:
"Used to be" is the keyword here. The banter between
TwilightGleaming and Gilda was, in my opinion, the greatest part of the previous story and the beginning of this one.But now it seems
TwilightGleaming has been delegated to something like a background character...Gilda makes up for both of them, thankfully, but still...
TwilightGleaming is even still on the cover art!10387579
I would also be happy for Gleaming to be more involved. Like, she's got a lot of Characters to interact with, and she's had some promising moments with them in this story previously, such as that duel with whatshername that gave her the concussion.
The thing is that Princess's Bit is a lot slower-paced than Good Trooper Gilda. Combine that with reading it as it updates, and the large cast of characters, and I straight up forget plot points and characters. Like the executive officer. I forgot they had one of those.
I'll probably do a straight-through reread in the near future, because those are a very different experience, and this story works significantly better in that format. I found GTG when it was nearly finished, so between that and the faster pacing and the smaller cast, I found it very punchy.
Yeesh. If they didn't properly bleed and soak that shark meat before cooking it, you end up with a really stomach turning ammonia taste. Lemon juice or vinegar is one option, milk's another or even a light brine- but none of that and you're likely to get icky flavors as the blood has a lot of urea in it.
10387276
She showed a very obvious use in this very chapter.
The same magic that can settle a bunch of coal dust can likely send it over the rails into a ship coming to close quarters- and ignite it. To gruesome effect.
Purse should know you need be careful adopting strays like that, you need to show dominance or they will walk all over you.
I wonder how Rina is going to do with the actual "big dogs" of the ship ... Gilda, the Goddess Amphitrite, Gleaming, Ping ...
10386872 Gleaming does have some notable personality similarities to Cannon!Sunset ... Bitverse!Sunset is a self-appointed privater who sinks smuggling and pirate ships and burns "collaborator" villages.
As for Amphirite, she's a god, one that considers the Alicorns to be "pretenders", she doesn't change to match current mortal society, mortal society bribes/begs her to let them continue living on/above/near her oceans.
10388568
Ah, being high enough to hear seamum, great.
10388394
And that's the (relatively) non-poisonous sharks. Greenland shark takes a long period of fermenting and drying to become edible - and it still tastes of ammonia.
"Winds only knew what might happen if you left magic coal to steep at the bottom of an active bay. Maybe giant mutant crabs?"
Or perhaps blood-sucking sea-zombies? (The usual monster movie portrayal of the effects of radioactive and toxic waste seems a lot likelier in a world where magic works. )
…. I need some of that magic coal for... reasons.
That would be a job for Rarity, but she's not here.
Why do I get the feeling that Reina and purse will sleep together?
"Shut your bleedin' beak, Gillie," Giles snarled. "And get down in that bunker. You have time to talk, you have time to dig. We need this bunker for actual coal. Unlike you'd like to 'arness oop again and haul the blessed Bit around for us for the rest of the tour?
By any chance did you happen to mean "unless"?
Starting to see why Mindy wants to get rid of her. Reina's got ambition, intelligence, and drive.
Lyra is an affectionate stoner it seems. And Auntie A really needs to get out of the ocean now and then.
Meanwhile, ohhh Queenie is going together along so well with Gilda and Gleaming. Lemme get some popcorn.